


bitten by the fangs of circumstance

by Quati



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Heel Dean Ambrose | Jon Moxley, Suicidal Thoughts, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:46:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29471181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quati/pseuds/Quati
Summary: “I… love Roman Reigns.” He paused when the mention of the man was almost enough to subsume him under the hurricane of pain and anger again. Gritting his teeth, Dean continued his confession. “I always have. Roman has always had my back and I had his. And I never forgave Seth for what he did to the two of us. For his sake, though… ? For Roman, I tried. I tried so hard to forgive him for what he did. For the longest time, I even managed to convince myself that I did. But I’m too tired to keep up that lie, now. I realize now I never forgave Seth. And Roman did. And it poisoned him.”
Relationships: Dean Ambrose | Jon Moxley & Roman Reigns & Seth Rollins | Tyler Black, Dean Ambrose | Jon Moxley & Seth Rollins | Tyler Black
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	1. i came toe to toe and face to face with the beast

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [How Adam Would Book Dean Ambrose's Heel Turn](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/761316) by Adam Blampied. 



> as the wise man whose plot i based this fic on once said, _"wrestling is a playground that devours its own players. dean ambrose's betrayal in the night roman stepped down was set to be one of its grim masterpieces. it was set up to be anger inducing, painful, messy, and it all went So Wrong. "_
> 
> thank god we have the power of Fanfiction to save us from what actually fuckin happened.
> 
> this fic is a retelling of dean ambrose's heel run from 2018. it's plot is based entirely on the fanfic video How Adam Would Book Dean Ambrose’s Heel Turn, linked above. cause this is my first time publishing fic, so i thought converting a very good video would be a good first step to practive my writing. so watch it and then come tell me if i did it justice. or don't if you want to avoid spoilers, i suppose. also, if i happen to get derailed and never finish this fic, you don’t need to live in suspense, cause the ending of the story is on that video.

The date was October 22, 2018. Seth felt as if this day would permanently etch itself onto him. When Roman had approached him and Dean earlier, and privately told them his dreadful news, it hit him like being drenched in cold water. And now he was there, standing in the locker room alongside Dean and shivering like all warmth had been leaked from him as they watched the monitor.

On the screen, decked in casual clothes and reddened eyes, Roman first chuckled at the boos aimed at him and then apologized for breaking his promise. The crowd’s initial animosity quickly broke down as the speech continued, into first confusion, then the quiet shock and dismay that already filled Seth as they heard what his brother had to say. Roman had leukemia, and it was back. Hearing him declare it, in front of the entire world, was almost too much. Hearing it again made it real. He turned to rest his forehead against Dean’s shoulder, feeling the sting of tears and seeking comfort in his partner’s presence. Dean was standing stock still, all of his energy replaced with tension.

Roman was too full of passion to let the night stay at that dreadful low, though. His brother continued the speech, pushing through the horror to lay down the challenge. After he was done whooping leukemia’s ass, he would come back home. With the crowd chanting its support at his rallying cry, Seth took a moment to let some of the fear wash away, to be filled with pride instead.

“He’s so strong.” Seth marvelled, clapping a hand on Dean’s shoulder and grinning at him through his tears. Dean had just started to turn to look at him when Seth’s gaze was pulled back to the screen, before he could decipher the strange expression on his face. They stayed there, watching enraptured until Roman had walked up the ramp and was making for the exit tunnel. He turned away from the monitor to head towards the entrance, feeling that Dean had made the same motion as him without a word exchanged between them. They both knew they were going the same direction. 

The two of them walked out in time to meet Roman at the entrance, and they threw themselves onto each other’s arms.They embraced, and Seth buried his face into his friend, seeking comfort and giving comfort the only way he knew how, by being there for him. 

They moved back to bracket Roman on either side. He caught a glimpse of Dean’s expression on the other side of Roman, the lost look on his eyes. But for all the tension Dean had been having with them before tonight, all of the pain he could see in him, when Roman held out a fist, the two of them joined without hesitation. Seth was crushed. He felt as though the only reason he was still standing right now was because of his brothers standing beside him. Although he could feel tears streaming down his face, he refused to hide them, staring straight into the camera and letting it carry his challenge to the world. Tonight, they were the Shield, as unbeatable as they had ever been at the height of their glory, before his deal with the devil had shattered them. Standing besides these two men, with whom he’d broken into the mainstream together. Who traveled together, worked together, fought together. On this night, they had to do it for Roman. And there was no one on the roster who could withstand their unity of purpose.

* * *

Later that night, Dean and him had their challenge for the tag titles. He would almost have felt sorry for Ziggler and McIntyre, if he had anything left in him to feel bad for anyone else besides his brothers. As it was, all of his pain had coalesced into furious determination the likes of which he’d seldom reached before. It didn’t matter who it was they were fighting against; it could have been anybody. They cut the champions apart like so much chaff before the scythe of their righteous goal.

And as he landed a Stomp on Ziggler, and Dean was pulling the referee back into the ring to count the pin, the crowd roared its approval as they won. His heart was soaring through the physical exhaustion of the match as they were handed the belts.

He clambered back to his feet, clutching the tag team belt and his white Intercontinental Championship, pivoting immediately to Dean. He drew him into a crushing hug, smiling, and paused for just long enough to raise his titles at the crowd and roar, feeling the crowd roar with him. It felt indescribably good to have a goal and accomplish it together.  _ Are you watching, Roman? _ , he wanted to shout down the lens of the camera.  _ This is for you!  _ He pressed his lips against the red tag team belt. Having them felt good, for the symbol that they were. The proof that they were a team tonight. That they did this together. That they  _ could _ get through what was next, and come out the other side stronger than ever. They would survive. He turned back to his brother, nuzzling into him again, grabbing at his face, his shirt, anything to make them closer to each other. He could feel Dean’s hands on his hair, on the nape of his neck.

And that was when Dean landed a kick straight in the mouth of his stomach.

Seth gasped, all air driven from him. There wasn’t even any time to react before he felt Dean’s strong arms hook him and drive him face first into the belts where they’d fallen from his nerveless fingers.

His vision was swallowed by the white star burst of pain radiating from his head. He stayed there where he’d collapsed into the mat, insensate. Seth remained in darkness for however long it was until he was dragged back out from near unconsciousness by the feeling of furious strikes to his face, his body. He flailed blindly, too dazed to even understand what was attacking him, much less be able to mount a defense.

It was only when he felt hands grabbing at his hair that he began to understand what was happening. Dean was screaming at him, right besides his ear. He struggled to put the fractured pieces of his consciousness back into a picture that made sense, to translate Dean’s pained howls into words. Trying to grasp at an explanation to what was happening, through the flurry of blows and demands.

He came to, to the sight of Dean right on top of him, roughly grabbing at his head. “Do you think it’s funny?” His furious sneer was inches from him, still screaming. “Was that a  _ joke? _ Huh?”

Seth reached out again, groping hands landing on Dean’s face. He tried again to search for an explanation, but only found more pain. Of course. Dean was in pain. Both of them were, faced with the spectre of Roman’s disease. He needed to get that across to Dean, that he knew what he was doing, lashing out under this tremendous weight at whoever was close enough to blame. He’d managed to find the one target who probably deserved his retribution more than anyone else. Seth needed to let him know that he forgave him for it. That they could get through this pain together, even the one Dean was inflicting on him now.

His body, however, had no concern for the urgency Seth was feeling, beaten up as it was. “It’s ok.” His words came out slurred, slow, as he cupped Dean’s face in his hands, meeting his piercing blue eyes, misty with unshed tears and anger. “C’mon. Look…” The rest of his sentence was abruptly cut off by Dean roughly grabbing his chin and dragging his head up by the hair.  _ “ _ It’s ok, Dean-” he mumbled through his brother’s muffling grip.

“Say it again.” Dean demanded, holding his head up. His fingers were digging into Seth’s chin. He complied, trying to get his sentence out again. Not fast enough for Dean, who shook him like a dog trying to break a rabbit’s neck, howling,  _ “say it!” _

“Sorry”, Seth managed to force out, before Dean’s patience ran out and he was on top of him again, raining blows and then throwing him off the ring. Seth collapsed there, on the cold floor, desperately leaning his head against the barricade as the only way to keep it up. He wiped at the spittle covering his face, checking for blood he’d started to feel down the back of his throat.

  
Dean was still talking. He heard him as he stalked forward, snarling. “You weren’t gonna get away with it every time, huh?” Then he was on him again, throwing him bodily at the timekeeper’s area. “Watch your mouth. Watch your  _ damn mouth!” _

Seth just lay there, relieved at the temporary reprieve, surrounded by wires and equipment and the discordant voices of thousands of fans, almost as confused as him. Dean was walking to and fro somewhere beyond his dazed perception, at one point throwing the championship belts at him before stomping somewhere else again. He let whatever his brother was doing be, while he tried desperately to get his breath back. He coalesced enough presence of mind in time to see a strip of bare concrete exposed near them. Dean had ripped the padding off.

“Now what, huh?” Dean demanded, as he stalked towards him. “Hey, talk your way out of  _ this _ one.” Seth wanted nothing more than to do that. He needed a break in the relentless assault so that he could plead his case to Dean, get him to understand that this wasn’t the way. He tried to rally again, getting his feet back under him and relying on the barricade to carry his weight. There was nothing he could do, though. Dean was already on top of him, dragging his uncooperative body to its doom. 

“Suck it up.  _ Suck it up!”  _ His brother continued the one-sided conversation as though he could actually hear Seth’s pleas in the uncoordinated flailing of his arms, sense his dread in the way he grasped for purchase against the vice grip on his neck. “You asked for this! You told me- you  _ told me  _ it was gonna happen. You  _ asked _ for it.” Seth collapsed to his knees, grabbing at his arm. Please, don’t, he wanted to say. Please let me explain. Let me apologize again. There were no words. Maybe Dean heard it anyways, but he certainly didn’t care for what he had to say. He mercilessly dragged Seth back onto his feet, and then delivered the Dirty Deeds.

As his head crashed against the unforgiving concrete, the devastating pain was the last thing Seth perceived before it consumed him entirely.

Then there was nothing.


	2. he knew me by my name, it was surprising

The Monday after Dean’s world collapsed, he was standing in the middle of the ring in a stadium in North Carolina. He had the Tag Team Championship belts in hand, both his and Rollins’, collected from the little traitor’s insensate carcass when he was done with him last week. He needed them for the point he wanted to make tonight.

As he got in the ring, belts in hand, the mass of people who’d come to watch the show were roaring their disapproval at him. The rain of boos was a deafening wall of noise, almost dense enough to touch. But for all of that, they might as well not be there. Dean had spent so long living with ten thousand voices driving him deaf with their shouting that the disapproval of this crowd was nothing. They didn’t know what it was to live through it. To try to love a traitor.

Dean collected a live microphone from an unwilling stage assistant, leaning against the ropes and drumming his fingers against the microphone, waiting until he could hear himself think past the noise. 

“I came out here today to talk about love.” 

That declaration was enough to draw their interest enough that they paused in the booing. That was all the leeway Dean needed to wedge his way into continuing his speech.

“I… love Roman Reigns.” He paused when the mention of the man was almost enough to subsume him under the hurricane of pain and anger again. Gritting his teeth, Dean continued his confession. “I always have. Roman has always had my back and I had his. And I never forgave Seth for what he did to the two of us. For his sake, though… ? For Roman, I tried. I tried  _ so hard _ to forgive him for what he did. For the longest time, I even managed to convince myself that I did. But I’m too tired to keep up that lie, now. I realize now I never forgave Seth. And Roman did. And it  _ poisoned him.” _

He cut himself off suddenly, whipping around to stare into the hard camera above one of the ring posts. Dean grabbed the camera, willing the black lens to transmit some of his furious stare at the person this was directed to. Letting some of his rage flow through the screen and to whatever hospital bed  _ he  _ was hopefully languishing in right now. 

“Seth.” His voice came out rough, choked with emotion. “You were grieving for Roman, last week. How.  _ Dare you.”  _ He grimaced, a showing of teeth that would never have been mistaken for a smile. Seth needed to know. He  _ needed _ to know that this was his fault, and Dean knew it too. And he wouldn’t let him walk away from it unscathed this time, like he made it out of the grand betrayal he pulled off four years ago. “You  _ did this. _ If you hadn’t decided you were better than us when you broke up the Shield, we would never have been in this place. And now Roman is sick. And you’re healthy. I didn’t get to control it, to stop you from hurting us back then. I couldn’t stop you now, either. But by God, I am standing right here. And I will. Fight. For Roman. You  _ will _ pay.” He snarled, right in front of the camera. Imagining the cold steel was Rollins’ neck so he could wring it. “I’m glad that Roman is gone. Because I don’t want him to see what I’m going to take from you, Seth. Which is  _ everything. _ ”

He released the poor piece of equipment contemptuously, stepping back to the middle of the ring. He couldn’t get carried away with wishing Rollins was dead right now. He had things to get to.

Dean picked up the two championship belts from where he’d dropped them to grab at the camera. He raised them until they glittered under the harsh stadium lights, the red leather and shining steel coming together into an actual physical manifestation of togetherness, teamwork, love. The ultimate prize for a team.

“I want to show you, Seth. We won these together… ? I’m gonna show you what they mean to me. I’m going to do the same thing you did with the IC title. I’m gonna have an open challenge.”

He dropped the belts to the ring again, letting them fall like so much glittering trash at his feet, as he grasped at the mic like a lifeline and roared into it, pointing at the back. “The first- the  _ first  _ team to come out gets a shot at me defending these! Come get your shot at the tag team champions, if you dare! Come fight against the greatest team in the world, the Shield! Whatever the hell is left of it!” Dean laughed roughly into it, dropping the mic on the ground besides the belts and stalking from one side of the ring to another. He felt his blood pulsing with rage, shaking him to the core, driving him on to move, move, move as he waited. This would hurt. He was so sure of it, it was like the glorious lines of a steel chair arcing towards someone’s back. He couldn’t wait to feel the impact.

Finally, the first notes of an entrance theme sounded from the sound system as somebody picked up his bait. Gallows and Anderson walked out, ready to be the steel chair Dean needed. He smiled savagely, still pacing the ring, as the two walked down the ramp and got up on the apron, staring at his wild expression with well-hidden apprehension. Dean wouldn’t have minded ripping them apart, but not right now. He craved a pain that was deeper, aimed somewhere different than the simple pleasures of a fist hitting flesh, of blood down the back of his throat. 

As Gallows and Anderson slowly climbed into the ring, Dean paused, standing stock still for a moment, before opening his arms and letting himself crash down into the mat. He stared at the lights with a grimacing, furious smile as Gallows climbed on top of him for a pin, waiting until Anderson bullied a referee into accepting Dean’s sham of a title challenge and then finally, finally counting to three. The bell sounded. It was done.

Gallows backed off from him, letting Dean spring back up to his feet and walk out. He left the titles in the ring.


	3. and he knew everything about me that i despised

_ “Where is he?” _

“Seth, please. Go home, you’re not…”

Seth brushed past the producer trying to block his way, stepping deeper into the maze of corridors. He didn’t have time to sit and be persuaded. It wasn’t like he wasn’t aware that this was a bad idea, anyways. He hadn’t been medically cleared to come to work, after the doctor took a single look at his listless expression and dilated pupils. He’d been slapped with the diagnosis of a severe concussion, as well as a chaperone to keep him awake all through a long, painful night. 

Last week, though, staying at home had meant he had to sit and watch Dean stroll in and spit poison at him, with no way to stop him from doing it. His helpless fury at the accusations, the mug he broke against the wall by having an argument with the television set, shouting at a man who couldn’t hear his replies- who made damn well  _ sure _ he couldn’t hear Seth’s replies. It wouldn’t happen again this week. He can’t stay home and watch Dean Ambrose say these things on television. He- he cannot do it.

So he was here. He flew himself to Manchester, England, where the next Raw would be held. He came to the arena, despite the splitting headache that had hardly abated since then and the vertigo that came and went, threatening to bowl him over. And now he was marching around the back, determined to search the place top to bottom if that’s what it took to find Dean, sometimes being pestered by worried personnel but mostly left alone to search to his heart’s content. He did pick up a cameraman, though, tailing him with the expectation of capturing the inevitable shouting match when he tracked his target down.

He’d spent he didn’t know how long with Dean and Roman in places much like this. He knew Dean would come to work today, but he couldn’t for the life of him imagine the man sitting at catering and smoking a cigarette like nothing was wrong, allowing the rest of the locker room to look at him like the live grenade he was. Dean hated feeling like a zoo animal, for all that he ended up becoming a superstar. No, when Dean was feeling the pressure, when he felt attacked, he would burrow into the guts of the building and only surface when it was time for blood to be spilled. That was where their shared past would come into play. 

Seth had been there, in hundreds of venues just similar enough to one another that they all blurred into one in his memory. He knew all about the hiding spots they used to have. Recording shaky footage with a handheld with Roman and Dean in distant deposits, haunting empty conference rooms for hours by their side, looking for what dark rooftop Dean had chosen to take a catnap in before their match.

There was a long stretch of time in his career where Seth gave up on looking for him, on squatting with him and Roman in these distant spots. Instead, he spent all his time in the surface areas of the arenas, in cushy dressing rooms, networking with upper management in their well kept offices. Neither of his brothers had ever been the type to play backstage politics with the same level of finesse Seth had. Roman already had all the goodwill he needed to keep a target off his back, from his family name, and didn't try to accrue more influence. Dean didn't care at all how many enemies he made. Only the Architect could compete in that battlefield, and because of that, he was able to destroy them. At one point, he thought he wanted nothing more than the success and power he’d gotten from it, but it had revealed itself as fool’s gold, and his ill-gotten gains faded away along with his desire for them. All that remained was the people he'd hurt in the process.

Once they had reformed their shaky partnership, Seth had gone back to hanging out in the less prestigious areas of the venues. Although it wasn’t the same.  _ They  _ weren’t the same; too much had happened to them to just fit smoothly back into the boots of the Shield, when they were young and unscarred. Although they certainly had been trying, looking for how their rough edges could fit back together into a new whole.  _ Seth _ had been trying, at least. Trying to repent for what he did to them. And it worked for a while, until Dean had been injured. He was on the shelf for a long time, almost dying of a staph infection. When he came back, it was almost like a different person; more abrupt, more serious. Less prone to showing his goofy side, to have fun in the ring like he used to. He’d put on weight, and put on a scowl, and stopped relying on him and Roman. 

In the recent months, Seth’s time backstage was more often than not spent hunting for Dean. He’d hide away in dingy unused bathrooms, because the man was too fucked up to tell them what was wrong and wanted to lick his wounds in private. Or he’d storm off after Seth crossed a line he hadn’t known was there, like when he called Dean a lunatic during an interview, and he’d have to chase after him to apologize. A lot had happened between the time where he knew exactly where Dean would have gone and now. Sometimes he wouldn’t find him at all before Dean himself wandered into Roman and him, acting like nothing was wrong, all chatty and fidgety, wanting to talk about their match. Those were the good days. Or he’d just storm by him and straight into the match they were supposed to have. 

That’s why it didn’t surprise him at all when Dean found him first.

He was stomping through a corridor on the back, walking with a hand against the wall to keep himself straight if he stumbled, looking for the stairs to the rafters, when he was hit by an impact like a freight train, knocking him against the wall. Seth pushed off of it, dazed but coming back with a swing. This time it wouldn’t be the same one-sided fight as last time; he was expecting it. He knew Dean during a mental breakdown. He had to stop him from demolishing him first, and talk later.

Dean blocked the strike with the steel chair he was carrying, and then leapt bodily on him again. Seth’s head rebounded against the wall. He only just managed to whip his head to the side, to avoid Dean’s fist from crashing into it, and then backed away further before he could be hit with the chair. This wasn’t good. The corridors were too narrow for him to execute most of his high-flying offense. It was risky enough trying to pull off a top rope maneuver while his balance was as off as it was, from the concussion, but he would gladly have tried it. He needed to hit hard enough to win this encounter, before Dean destroyed him. Because that was the other negative of the situation. Out here, surrounded by things to use as improvised weapons and with no ref in sight, Dean was in his element. From the fierce smile on his brother’s face, he knew that as well. If he had a shred of sense, he would never have walked straight into Dean’s trap while he couldn’t stand up straight. The Seth of days of yore would never have dared do something so dangerous. This one still wished he wasn’t here, but the need was too great. His only way out now was fighting through it.

Seth stepped back hurriedly and aimed a superkick at Dean’s chin, but at such close quarters, Dean had no problem avoiding it by stepping in closer. Seth aimed punches at his centre of mass, also to no avail; he was using the chair as a shield between them. He tried once more to step away from reach, and that was when Dean hit him straight in the stomach with the chair. He doubled over, gasping for breath, and promptly got a dizzying kick in the face as a reward.

After that, it was all downhill for him. Seth did his best to strike back where he could, and at one point managed to trip Dean up; he came up bloody. Seth wasn’t sure if that had happened in the fall, or if some of his other hits had managed to do it. The results of Dean’s previous attack were showing, though. He was slow, uncoordinated. For all the desperation he managed to muster in his defense, fighting past the concussion, Dean’s frenzy was at a level higher than he could reach.

Eventually Dean managed to catch him in the Dirty Deeds, and Seth went crashing down again. His vision swam, with the vague shape of Dean walking away from him, and then coming back with something. He felt something cold hit the side of his head, heard Dean start laughing. He reached up, touching the spot with his fingers. They felt wet. When he brought them to his eyes, confused, they were tinted yellow with paint. Dean had sprayed a yellow streak in his hair.

“You don’t get to erase the person you used to be, Seth.” Dean snarled, before dragging him up by the hair. He half dragged, half carried him to the deposit room at the end of the corridor, ignoring Seth’s dazed struggles to free himself.

At the corner of the room, there was a pile of cinderblocks, set up ominously at an open spot. The awful promise of the sight, dramatic irony and all, gave Seth a second wind in his attempts to fight back. Dean cinched the headlock in even further as a response, cutting off his airway until he was on his knees, black spots dancing in his vision. When he was released, Seth went into a hacking cough, giving his brother time to set his head up on the cinderblocks, almost lovingly, before holding him in place with a handful of hair. The cameraman, having seen where this was going just as well as him, had given up on recording a day-to-day beatdown and ran off in search of help in time to stop a murder attempt.

“Dean, please.” He choked out, trying to look at Dean’s face from the angle he was at. The glance he caught held nothing but disdain. “Please, don’t.”

The cold, hard lines of his sneer broke into a grin at his pleading. Dean moved his head closer, so he was inches away from him, and he rumbled. “Come on, Seth. It doesn’t matter, because you’ll forgive me… won’t you? Cause you have to.”

Dean released his vice grip on his head for a second, just to replace it with a boot a second later. “No matter what I do. No matter how weak it makes you feel. To forgive me. No matter how much it makes you…  _ sick.” _

He felt the boot being lifted. Seth lifted his head out from the cinderblocks. Trying to get away.

And the boot came back down, and stomped his skull through them. The last thing he heard as he succumbed to the lancing pain and the feeling of of his skull cracking under the weight was Dean’s voice, following him down into the darkness.  _ “Go on, Seth. Forgive me.” _


	4. he had gold and he had silver

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> content warning: some suicidal ideation in this chapter, be forewarned.

It was the week before Survivor Series, and Dean was wondering what it was going to take to excise Seth Rollins from his heart.

He’d always been a man of few friends. He knew perfectly well how off-putting he would be. People would be unnerved at his long silences when he wasn’t up to talking, or be driven away by the intensity of his moods when the desire to connect struck. They would be rubbed raw by his rough edges, by his off-color sense of humor, or else he would lose his patience with their bullshit himself. He wouldn’t have trusted most of them not to fuck him as soon as he slipped up, revealed the smallest weakness in his armor. That was fine, he didn’t need to surround himself in hangers-on. He had his brothers with him. The ones that, six years ago, were part of a vanishingly small group that tolerated him, and that he tolerated right back. And then they had decided to form a team together. And, to his shock, he didn’t manage to drive them away. The more he revealed the ugliness of his soul, the bloodstains on his past, the history behind his many scars, the more he expected them to pack their bags and leave. Find a partner who was less… less Dean.

And they didn’t. They kept sticking around. 

They’d progressed from people that he wouldn’t mind being near to trusted allies, then to the only people in the world who knew him entirely. The ones who saw him at every low point and had his back at every major success. Either Seth or Roman could have asked anything of him, and he would have given it. The strength of his arm, the blood from his veins. They could have asked him to die for them, and he would, without question. Without restraint. He belonged entirely to them.

And then Seth had to go and stab them in the back, because the Shield wasn’t enough for him. Dean wasn’t enough for him.

And like that, all the love he had for Seth had curdled. It sat in his heart, and rotted, and turned to hate. He’d dedicated his entire life to seeing Rollins bleed with the same single-minded intensity that he’d used to love him, before. They would have torn each other to shreds, and Dean would have died happily. Died for Seth, like he’d always planned to do. As long as he got to bring him with him.

If only he hadn’t managed to weasel away from him even then. The  _ Architect’s _ grand escape plan, executed once again, leaving Dean with nothing but ashes. It wasn’t fair that Dean didn’t get to make him pay.

Still, he picked himself back up. Mentally redacted his list of loved ones from ‘Roman and Seth’ all the way down to ‘just Roman’, and learned to keep ticking without him. Gotta get up today, because he had a match. Gotta go to work tonight because he needed to beat up Chris Jericho. Found reasons to keep going, like he always did. Get knocked down, get back up again. And again. And again. Spit the blood out and keep moving. The three of them were still inextricably linked, though. They always seemed to circle each other, even after the Shield had exploded. They’ve always carried the memory of each other, and that was a legacy and a curse. 

And then Roman was gone, taken away from him. Gone to fight his own battles, ones that were beyond what Dean could help him with. And then he was totally alone. What happened to Roman was so unfair.

His heart was entirely empty now. No, that wasn’t true. He still had his hate.

So he fought for Roman. Keep getting back up, always. He still had work to do. And here, what he needed to do was clear. He was in the middle of a hurricane, and this was the only thing he could see. So he fought for the right cause, and made Seth pay for what he did to Roman. 

Dean was so tired of hating Seth, though. He’d gone through it once. Dean didn’t want to do it again. He wanted it over and done with. If only he could manage to exorcise his feelings for Seth from himself, then he could be truly empty, and finally feel nothing at all. It would be such a step up from this, the-- grief, and anger, the pain that hounded him every waking hour. He would do anything to make it stop. He’d gone for the next best thing, and removed Seth from the scene. He hadn’t been seen in a WWE building since Dean had smashed his lying little head against the cinderblocks. And just like when Seth had done it to him, all those years ago, the victim did not get back up. They were gone. But Dean was still hating him.

It was so frustrating. Whenever he looked, he saw reminders of what he’d lost. He’d see black, and think it was a Shield vest. He’d see long hair, and think it would be Roman. Hear a laugh, and think it was Seth snorting through his nose at some joke Dean told him. Walking around, someone would mention getting ready for Survivor Series, try to recruit people to fight for ‘brand warfare’ or some other meaningless noise, and he would remember walking out with the Shield for the first time, on a show with the same name. He couldn’t escape the memory of the Shield, like shards of it were still sitting beneath his skin, and every time he moved, he felt a piece tear him apart from inside. There  _ had _ to be something he could do to rid himself of it.

He was so wrapped up in his own head that when he first passed by a monitor and heard ‘Seth Rollins’, he assumed it was another example of his mind conjuring him up from nowhere like his personal ghost and kept moving. The next group of people he passed - head down, trying to amp up his glare to stop anyone from trying to direct word at him - were talking about Seth as well, though. He caught a wrestler muttering a “- _ but did they really make him come here?”  _ before they were hushed, sending a look at Dean walking by them.

Seth was here?

He kept walking, directly into the closest break room. He barged his way through the customary crowd watching the show near the monitors, and planted himself near the front.

On the screen, Baron Corbin, looking like a greasy valet as usual, was launching into the tail end of a speech. Dean, regrettably and with much effort, paid attention to what he was saying, something he usually tried his best to avoid.

“... And so, we must have a definitive champion going into Survivor Series. Which is why, tonight, we are having an IC title defense.” Corbin kept talking, but Dean had already tuned him out. The crowd was darkly muttering around him, and people kept shooting Dean glances. He stayed put. They could whine at him all they wanted, whatever it was he'd done to piss them off now, but he needed to see him. He hadn't expected, wasn’t prepared to see Seth again this soon, but he couldn’t have stopped watching if he’d wanted. And, sure enough, before too soon the man himself was appearing at the entrance ramp.  _ Burn it down_, the screen shouted. Dean couldn’t tear his eyes away from his pixelated visage. Seth looked terrible. He was walking down the ring, very gingerly, in ring gear and a bandaged side of his head. Maybe he should have felt happy at seeing his enemy brought so low, but there was no such relief. He just sat there, and watched, as Seth made the painfully long sojourn to the ring, where Baron Corbin was done nominating Finn Bálor as the challenger.

The bell sounded, although only in the most generous terms could anyone have said that a match then happened. Seth crumpled instantly under the heel of Bálor’s boot. It couldn’t have taken two minutes since Seth managed to barely make it out to the ring, and already they were crowning another Intercontinental Champion.

This was terrible. It was painful. It wasn’t enough.

He turned and dashed out, not even knowing where his feet were taking him before he saw himself walk out there. He was on the entrance ramp, frozen still, watching Seth slowly be lifted back to his feet by a referee. He didn’t know how to feel. It hadn’t worked. He was still in pain. Seth was still here. It hadn’t even  _ worked. _

The stillness broke, and like a bursting dam, the rage came flooding out. He launched himself at Seth, bowling him over from the painful equilibrium he’d managed to find on his feet.  _ “Seth”,  _ he growled out, lifting him up by the back of his clothes and slamming him against the barricade. Why are you still here? Why can’t I stop thinking about you? 

The referee was trying to interpose himself between him and his prey. Dean shoved him off with barely any effort, turning to snarl a warning at him and eyeing the scene for anyone else that might interfere. Inside the ring, Bálor was looking at him, with the IC belt under an arm and a hand on the ropes like he was about to jump them. Dean focused on him, although he refused to release his hold of Seth where he had his unconscious form slumped against the barricade. After what felt like a long moment, under the heat of his gaze, Bálor backed away, hands in the air. “I’ve got Survivor Series to think about!”, he heard the man start saying to Corbin before he totally dismissed him from his focus. If he wasn’t Seth, he didn’t matter.

He went back to trying to exorcise his hate on Seth Rollins’ unconscious body. He beat him until his knuckles were raw and as bloody as the rest of him.

It wasn’t enough.


	5. just one thing, a prick of your finger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hate this chapter. oh, well. let's just get through it so i can get to writing the interesting parts.

The days crawled by slowly for Seth, during his medical leave. It was all a daze of identical grey days. Limping around from his hospital bed to the bathroom, doing whatever exercises he’d been cleared to do in an effort to be able to move at all, watching whatever program was on TV. Breaking into tears for no reason. Exchanging worried messages with Roman, back and forth, but hardly bothering to talk to anybody else. Going to bed. Doing it all again the next day. 

Usually watching a pay-per-view from backstage was always a highlight. The locker room would converge to watch together, laugh at missteps on the matches, bet on the results, congratulate the winners after they came back. Seth, though, got to watch it lying down in a hospital bed, feeling too sick to react to anything. Even in his state, though, he managed to find the energy to scowl at Bálor defending the title he’d stolen from him against the US champion, Nakamura. That was his match to have. And then, just to add insult to injury, Gallows and Anderson walked out as well, screwing over Nakamura to stand besides Bálor. 

Just when he was wondering what a wasted Sunday this was turning out to be, the screen switched over to Dean’s face. 

Seth lurched up at the sight, wondering if the wave of nausea was from the sudden movement or from the pain of seeing him. He frowned at the screen, examining his detached, uncaring expression, sitting across from Michael Cole for an interview with all the vim and vigor of someone who hadn’t been sleeping at all. Well, good. That made two of them.

“So, Dean. Seth Rollins… Probably should have been here tonight. He’s not. I just wanted to ask you, because you say you’re doing this because you love Roman Reigns.” Cole paused for effect, before continuing. “How can you make Roman watch this at home?”

“Roman would be proud of me.” Seth felt his stomach drop. He had a feeling where this was going. Dean’s face was serene in his self-righteousness, sprawling there on the couch in his beaten-up leathers with the confident look of someone laying down the simple facts of the situation. “Roman tried to forgive Seth, and look where it got him. So he knows why I’m doing this. He knows that he doesn’t deserve to be in a hospital bed, and he knows that Seth Rollins does.”

Dean turned to look directly at the camera. There was a smirk playing on his lips, and his baby blue eyes cut through into Seth like he could see him there. “So, Seth! I’m throwing out the challenge. You and me, one on one match at TLC. I will beat you. And then I will end. Your. Career.”

And then it was over. The show continued, leaving Seth with a rising fury sitting in his chest. 

“That’s how it’s going to be, Dean?” He said through gritted teeth, at the screen. Talking to his absent enemy again. 

Seth was well and truly done getting attacked by his lunatic brother. The night Dean had fallen apart and taken Seth down with him, he hadn’t seen it coming. He knew what Dean was doing, though. It all came into a horrible kind of clarity for him, after it had happened, and he sympathized. Because it’s a terrifying world out there, where bad things, where unfair things, happened not only to good people, but to people you love, for no reason. And to go out in that world was… horrifying. So he looked for someone to blame. For a conspiracy, for intent, some sort of design. And the one Dean found to pin his pain on was him. 

Twice, now, he tried to get through to him with words. Trying to offer him understanding, closeness, a shoulder to cry on. But Dean was too far gone to be touched by kindness right now. And maybe all that happened between them was too much, the sundering too profound, and Dean would never again accept Seth’s offers of comfort for what they were. That was alright. Because Seth also spoke Dean’s language. His native tongue. Violence.

Seth refused to allow Dean to paint him in those dreadful colors. The mistake Dean had made, in linking the unfairness of Seth betraying the Shield to the unfairness of Roman’s disease, had to be corrected. He could bear asking for forgiveness only for the crime he had committed.

Kindness didn’t work. Words didn’t work. Dean would only accept a conversation on his terms, on the brutal ways that he was choosing to build his life around. Fine. If that’s what it took.

Seth started preparing to destroy his brother again.


End file.
